Written by Rachael Sackville-Jones, Edge Hill University. Rachael is a Senior Lecturer and Inclusion Lead in the Early Years Education Department. She previously worked as an Early Years teacher and as Specialist Inclusion teacher for Lancashire Education Authority.
This blog has been written in response to the question asked at our recent Ofsted inspection: ‘How do you structure your curriculum to equip trainees to meet the challenges of effectively supporting children with SEND in schools?’
The development of our approach and our curriculum is ongoing, and one which we continue to reflect upon and develop as the world around us continues to change. Our job is multi layered – firstly we need to build trainees’ knowledge and understanding about how to support a wide range of young children, to develop positive partnership with their parents/carers, to engage in collaborative working with outside agencies and to understand their duties under current legislation. But just as importantly we need to equip trainees with a deeper understanding around inclusive practice and to develop their critical reflective skills to interrogate changing legislation, provision and the decisions made around SEND in schools. No trainee can leave us as an expert in every possible SEND, but we aim for them understand positive starting points for working with all children and new challenging situations. They need the confidence to ask questions, the skills to apply the principles and understanding they have already gained, and most importantly the desire to continue to learn from the children in front of them.
Our approach when planning our curriculum has three main elements:
- Increasing our taught content around SEND/Adaptive teaching and ensuring it is embedded in all our university sessions.
- Increasing our trainees’ practical experience of SEND/Adaptive teaching in schools.
- Looking at how to develop a deeper understanding and confidence to become inclusive practitioners for the future.
So how are we attempting to do this?
Increasing our taught content around SEND/Adaptive teaching and ensuring it is embedded in all our university sessions.
In terms of our university teaching sessions; these are arranged as a twofold approach. Firstly, we have specific teaching sessions around SEND/Adaptive teaching focussing upon content such as the current SEND Code of Practice (DfE, DoH 2015), multi-agency working, working with parents and focussed sessions around different groups of learners. But alongside this, SEND/Adaptive teaching is embedded in all our other sessions. All our curriculum teaching sessions around EYFS Areas of Learning and National Curriculum subjects, and all our sessions around play, pedagogy, planning and assessment etc. include content around SEND/Adaptive teaching. This helps to build our trainees knowledge and confidence ,and to ensure that adaptive teaching is fully embedded in their practice and part of their learning environments.
Increasing our trainees’ practical experience of SEND/Adaptive teaching in school.
Whilst our trainees are out in school, they are required to reflect upon how their learning in university sessions fits with what they are observing in practice. On our trackers for each Professional Practice, trainees have a specific task to complete each week relating to SEND/ Adaptive teaching. This may involve observations of their environment, a discussion with their mentor or school SENCO, planning and reflecting upon an activity for one chosen child or adapting learning for a specific subject area. These tasks are carefully planned as a progression through the three different years as trainees build up their leadership role.
Alongside this, each of your UG and PG trainees has the opportunity to go out into a specialist school for a week long enhancement placement. This is a key feature of our provision, and trainees get the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the life of a very different provision and to observe how the curriculum and physical environment is structured. Following this, trainees have opportunity to reflect upon key similarities and differences they have observed between specialist and mainstream provision and consider how they can transfer learning from this to their future mainstream practice. As a result of this experience, we have a number of trainees who choose to seek employment in specialist provisions after graduation.
Looking at how to develop a deeper understand and confidence to become inclusive practitioners for the future.
In terms of developing our trainees as inclusive practitioners for the future, we are very aware that current legislation and practice around SEND will continue to change, and our trainees need to be ready to respond to these changes and continue to develop their own practice. We ensure that our trainees understand the historical development of provision for children with SEND and reflect upon how this may develop in the future (Crutchley 2018, Hodkinson 2019). We emphasise our central principles of inclusive practice- that every child and family is unique and that this is the starting point for provision. No teacher is an expert in every area of SEND, but they need to learn about each individual child by observing and asking questions. The principles of the EYFS are central to inclusive provision- focussing on the unique child, planning an enabling environment, and developing positive relationships is the key approach that we promote (DfE 2014).
We also promote in our trainees a need to be reflective and critical and to question whether their practice is best for each child. We consider provision through a more critical disability studies lens and reflect upon the use of language and terminology, the classification of children through medical models of disability, the challenges of different interventions, and the measuring of children using normative developmental assessments (Goodley & Runswick-Cole 2011). We encourage trainees to ask questions of themselves and others as to whether current provision is inclusive and best for the child. How are they including all children within their physical environments and how are they promoting inclusive attitudes amongst children, staff, and parents (Brodie & Savage 2015). Most importantly are they considering provision from the perspective of the child themselves and listening to their voice (Franklin & Brady 2022, Brady & Franklin 2023)
Alongside this we explore inclusive practice in a wider context and consider this in relation to our own values, schools’ values, and society’s values. We explore links between SEND and austerity, and intersections between SEND and different marginalised groups within a wider focus on equality, diversity and inclusion. We push trainees to reflect upon what type of practitioners they want to be and what they want for the children in their classes. We also promote their role as advocating for young children, their rights and their holistic needs.
The current education system for children with SEND is under great pressure and so we work with trainees to navigate how to balance their ideals for inclusive practice alongside the current challenges around funding in schools (DfE 2022). Waiting lists for assessments for EY children are at unprecedented high and so our trainees need to hit the ground running and begin inclusive practice straight away rather than waiting for information and advice from other agencies, or for Education, Health, and Care plans to be issued. We hope that the key principles that they have learnt here will give them the confidence to address these challenges with a positive attitude and retain a commitment to do the best they can for every child in their care.
Brady, G., Franklin, A. and RIP:STARS Collective (2023) “‘I am more than just my label’: Rights, fights, validation and negotiation. Exploring theoretical debates on childhood disability with disabled young people,” Sociology of health & illness, 45(6), pp. 1376–1392.
References
- Brodie, K. and Savage, K. (eds.), 2015 Inclusion and early years practice. London: Routledge,
- Crutchley, R. (ed.) 2018 Special needs in the early years: partnership and participation. Los Angeles: SAGE
- Department for Education and Department of Health (2015) Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years.
- Department for Education: (2022) SEND Review: Right support, right place, right time
- Department for Education (2024) Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework
- Franklin, A. and Brady, G., 2022. ‘Voiceless’ and ‘Vulnerable’: Challenging How Disabled Children and Young People Were Portrayed and Treated During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK and a Call for Action, In Turok-Squire, R., Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights during COVD-19. Palgrave Macmillan
- Goodley, D. and Runswick-Cole, K., 2011. Problematising policy: conceptions of ‘child’, ‘disabled’ and ‘parents’ in social policy in England. International journal of inclusive education, 15(1), pp. 71–85.
- Hodkinson, A. (2024) Key issues in special educational needs, disability & inclusion. 4th edition. London: Sage Publications.